Boogeyman director says failed Star Wars gag led to the scariest scene

boogeyman I’m in the mood Based on Stephen King’s short story of the same name, the film is a down-to-earth supernatural drama and rare summer horror with room for both trauma exploration and nightmarish shadowy monsters. It’s a movie. From a pair of impressive performances, yellow jacketwith Sophie Thatcher obi-wan kenobi‘s Vivian Laila Blair depicts the haunted hijinks from the perspective of two young women…a staggering amount of lives piled up all at once.

When the state of horror leans toward the extreme/high-concept direction, the following outbursts occur. savage and M3GAN The latest from thrilling filmmaker Rob Savage proves audiences can take visionary mania anywhere.host, dash cam) feels like gambling. boogeyman Not what fans would expect from Savage shooting a horror movie using only a zoom, but definitely the epitome of a multi-talented filmmaker. 20th Century Studios seems to agree.but boogeyman It was reportedly filmed for a streaming release, but was never released bumped into Go to the theatrical release calendar.

Why an indie darling Stephen King’s studio film was an obvious choice for a director known to cult horror aficionados for challenging formal norms and embracing inspiring filmmaking. (dash cam Rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, but Savage knows it. ) Where did he have room to play? Given the agitated voice Savage is now horrified by, Polygon jumped at the chance to talk to him about what he had brought (scary) boogeyman.

[Ed. note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.]

polygon: boogeyman Feels like a left turn after the previous two indie horror movies. It’s very exciting. Why was this the next thing to do?

Rob Savage: My initial reaction was: “The only reason to make a movie called” boogeyman When thousands of Boogeyman movies have been made, the definitive version has been called for. So don’t be like trapped in 2023. I wanted it to be completely timeless rather than timeless. So I was watching a lot of 1960s and 70s movies, and those movies are still terrifying. There’s a kind of beautiful simplicity in them, and that’s what I wanted to achieve with this film. To be honest, I knew I could do it if I scare it enough. ordinary people if you did Poltergeist likewise. That was the pitch.

Your film seems to start with visual conceit. host Spoken through the Zoom window. dash cam I use Uber’s drive recorder.your short story deaf dawn Subvert the zombie trope with deaf characters. boogeyman has a more classic feel, but were you still thinking in a similar form-first way?

I am driven by visual storytelling.Filmmakers who influenced me when I first picked up a camera, such as [Alfred] Hitchcock and [Dario] with Argento [Brian] De Palma was a filmmaker who truly spearheaded the visuals. So, in working on the screenplay with Mark Heyman, who drafted this film I directed, I used storyboards, scribbles, images, scenes from the film that evoke similar emotions, or the kind that I want to elicit. sent him the sentiment of in the audience. I wanted the audience to once again feel like that kid who woke up in the middle of the night looking into a dark corner of a room and imagining something there. I was always thinking about how I could act out such a subjective experience and make the audience fall into that helplessness again. Because we are all such children and we all remember that fear.

The early images of cinema questioned how we could capture dark areas in the frame and give them their presence. This idea of ​​looking into the eyes from the darkness only hints at the shapes that are there. This was an attempt to recreate what it feels like to wake up in the middle of the night and let your eyes adjust. With the jacket hanging over the back of the chair, it looks like someone is standing in the room. I wanted to find a way to evoke these childhood memories.

What is Fear? How do you manage scariness when constructing scenes for your films?

If there is fear, there is also jumping fear. I love them both. I think jump scares depend more on the language of the film. It’s about knowing what your audience expects. You’re almost playing a game with your audience. They’re guessing where the fear comes from, and you kind of lead them down a path that’s somehow familiar and then subvert their expectations. I think it’s always about taking a familiar and safe space and perverting it in some way. It makes the home, especially the bed it sleeps in, a realm of terror, and it is always fertile ground.

It is also about giving the audience an image that will reverberate in the audience’s brain after watching the film. Jump scares are often self-contained. You don’t need to give too much energy after you come to a conclusion. But there are some images that stick in my mind when I get home, my apartment is dark and I want to turn on all the lights. In this movie, it’s an eye in the dark. And then there’s the scene where Sophie is in the kitchen, with her car’s lights on, and the creature is briefly visible. This was one of the first times we saw the creature. I thought it would stay in the audience’s mind. It’s like an inkblot test. You show them enough for their minds to do the rest.

Photo: Patti Perrette/20th Century Studios

You can earn tons of miles from the balls of light that your youngest daughter throws into various dark corners. It feels real, but did you invent it?

It’s true. I just ordered it from Amazon. It was really the last moment. Originally, the toy lightsaber was to break and malfunction.But then she forgot she was Princess Leia [in Disney Plus’ Obi-Wan Kenobi] And I understand that Disney didn’t want Princess Leia to have a fucking lightsaber. So we googled things like ‘light-up toys for kids’. I spent an afternoon rewriting the scene and in the end it turned out to be the best one in the movie.

What have you gleaned from Stephen King’s short stories, or his general approach to horror?

I wanted the way he extrapolated the short story to feel true to the themes he was discussing. I wanted the film to feel like a real intersection of the real world of horror and trauma with this fantasy boogeyman character, just like a short story. It makes sure that every element we were inventing that wasn’t in the short story felt on par with all the other King originals, and consistently felt like King. I meant that. A lot of it was about dealing with characters in a thoughtful way, and how the film is devoid of nihilism and contains hopeful notes as well. That’s what King always does so beautifully. He is by no means a cynical writer.

Your take on the short story “The Boogeyman” leaned more toward Dr. King’s cosmic horror impulses. Reminds me of the world building in the Dark Tower series. Did you watch HP Lovecraft?

Lovecraft was what we were going for in the third act. There was this creature we created called the Boogeyman, but what you see on screen is just a fraction of what this thing can do, and there’s a moment at the end when you realize there are several sides to this thing. I was hoping that You probably don’t understand. Cosmic horror elements are revealed when the creatures finally start attacking. [Sophie Thatcher’s character] One-on-one with Sadie. We made it very strange and gruesome. I still can’t believe we did it.

Photo: Patti Perrette/20th Century Studios

i would put boogeyman My guess is that the “animal traits” category has been on the decline over the past decade. no It may be counted, but crawl is out there, but there aren’t that many monsters stalking unsuspecting victims in studio movies today. Do you think that subgenre presents unique challenges? How did you navigate it?

About the characteristics of living things, it is difficult. This is because if you can hit the face, the fear is essentially reduced. So the physical nature of living beings is certainly less scary than the unknown and the supernatural. So we wanted to make sure that even though it’s a physical creature, it ultimately has a supernatural element. It can materialize wherever there is darkness and follow her to her home. Even though it’s a creature trait, and it’s definitely a creature trait, it gets there in the end. I wanted it to feel like a classic ’70s haunted house movie of hers for the majority of its run time.

As young filmmakers step into the studio world, we see more and more of the sophisticated language of video games creeping into the visuals of their films.As someone who likely grew up around Resident Evil as much as Hitchcock, are there any games that feel foundational to you? Did you look into any of them before making them? boogeyman?

I would like to say I find myself playing and replaying The Last of Us games. I wouldn’t say I’m influenced by video games, but I’m heavily influenced by the Last of Us game. I refer to them all the time in every movie I make.I’m sending people a playthrough of a particular scene – there’s a scene in boogeyman where are me and eri [Born, cinematographer] I was obsessed about a particular stealth scene in Last of us. This is an incredibly well-made horror game, possibly the best ever. It’s very engaging and gives the audience a subjective feel… I think only video games can do that. But if you can convey even a fraction of that in a horror movie, you can really scare the audience.